Donald Trump makes a hash of his administration’s COVID-19 testing regime. Why is the president handing his opponents a wedge issue by suggesting he wants fewer tests to present a false picture of the outbreak in America? Also, as the assault on American statuary continues in the streets, elected officials are joining with the mob in their attack on the nation’s history.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Welcome to the Commentary magazine Daily, podcast today's Tuesday June twenty third, twenty twenty, I'm John of words, the editor of Commentary magazine with me, as always senior editor, a green waldheim. I jump see you.
Christine rose and high Christine Hygiene
An associate editor nor Rossman high on our agenda,
Ok, so
you're a weekend in which we have.
Add staffers at the White House, claiming that Donald Trump was only
Joking when he said that he had wanted to slow testing down, because the numbers were too big trump, then both on twitter
and in another interview basically said I wanted slow down testing cause. The numbers are too big. Why did he do that? And I want you to take this on not in a tone of condemnation but in a tone of inquiry? Why did he do this because it does
make sense, even if his reading the stage and structure in other the the stage
allowed. It still doesn't make sense. Ok, just just jump in
anybody? Ok it. I did it in part, because he cannot tolerate being mocked criticized for anything. So this was this was a virgin
his defence he's he's making a case for it.
The soundness of his judgment,
I think the struggle here is with the premise of the question which precludes condemnation
which renders our ability to answer the question on honestly at a very difficult
and silenced the US, I'm I'm sorry. I am on cancelling new information on one avenue that I am more than willing to go right down. The other ones are debts, but there's that I have the sort of weird theory which might not hold, but there is we discuss this little bit in the past week or so. There's that there's a change and the public
about the pandemic for good or for ill right, if it has led some people to take irresponsible steps towards acting as if the
is no pandemic. There had been. You know over reaction,
on both sides to those steps taken, but I wonder if Trump isn't in some way kind of testing that public
right. There is that there is a way in which you know we ve been bombarded with pandemic facts statistics, death rates, opposition rates-
recovery rates, testing problems this in that for months and months and months? He himself might also be experiencing some Kofoed fatigue and wondering if you know, as a says he's just doing his knee jerk responds to being cut
besides forgetting that there is actually still a pandemic on, but a lot of Americans would also like to forget their sharp and ever gotten, and- and I wonder if, if maybe that's part of that- that this risk cavalry or tone he's he's embracing,
It's one that you know he's not alone and embracing right now. That's your act under saying possibility, not look. I think I mean he's clearly an anti alarmist on the virus, all told and- and he thinks there
the fact that the testing is feeding beings.
Eighty more than its helping to manage the pandemic. I think that's a bad argument, but there is truth to the fact that.
Everyone is bound by everyone. I mean major media is ignoring the total plummet in death rates while, while talking up not talking but but while making it an enormous deal of the realm relative to that plummet, relatively modest rise in an infection rates in some states that isn't helpful. But the answer to that is not just not too slow testing because, in fact, while, while the infection rate rises and the death toll plummets, you end up with a fatality rate for the virus,
is very, very small. That is much smaller than at least in the? U S than than than we had thought if things continue at this pace, right, ok, so the number of cases on June twenty second, the number of new cases was thirty thousand four hundred and fifty one. That is a thirty two
such an increase in aggregate over the fourteen over fourteen. In other words, like fourteen day
Ago there were thirty two percent fewer cases than there are now and of new cases, but new D
ass, there were three hundred and sixty and the fourteen day change is thirty one percent down. So we have an almost perfect parallel deaths down thirty percent new cases,
thirty percent and where are the new cases they are in
This is a rising most steeply in Montana, Oklahoma, Idaho. So what is it?
Tell us I'm not sure that it tells us much, except that you know. Why do you need to test for a virus right you eat or whatever you need to test? If there's a treatment right, you got a test, you have something you get some
palliative were built on medication to fix it, and you also stay away from me right right, so right, so that those are the two things so there
doesn't appear to be a medic yet a medication. That really is a palliative, because of course, we don't know how what to think about how Clark, one now
There? Are these other drugs that we are now hearing about? You know this gout, drug and and some other things.
So you can sort of see. Why the note the fact that there are officials stats on how many people have contracted a virus that even at its worst has what appears to be a you know: two percent fatality rate that
that that the listing of the overall numbers is a false statistic. What matters is hospitalizations and then das
that's how we calculate whether a pandemic is gently is whether it's killing people and it has killed a horrible number of people over a hundred and twenty thousand now, which was you know, which was on the on the upper edge of what we were worried. It would be when all the measures were taken in March. So I dont think Trump has a point, because this isn't just academic as as apes has largely because somebody who has the virus should be quarantine, so the doesn't spread to somebody who really could get killed by it. Even if that person doesn't get very sick,
But you what on earth is he doing saying at the way he says it? I mean it. Has this bizarre like primitive magic idea like if we didn't know that there were infections, then
you wouldn't be in fact, emulous sailor. Somebody said to me last night: it's like boy. If I didn't get a pregnancy test, I would
ever know that I had was having a baby. I mean, isn't that the simplest explanation that it's a terrible statistic- and he doesn't like the statistic present- ok- have to argue against the statistics. Ok, so that is the simple explanation. Why,
would he give his enemies ammunition? By saying, I don't want to have to argue over a terrible statistic, so I would prefer that statistic not be there in what understanding of up of up of a message of
you know, a public diplomacy or whatever you want to call it in where in any
by these calculation. Does something like that come in as the thing that you say when, when something really bad is going on, I gave an eight year, forgetting that he's really off his game, his trunk game right the thing they got him into the White House and twenty sixteen and he's been in a kind of defensive crouch for the last couple of months.
In terms of dealing with this, we saw it when you know the kind of the way he behaved in his own press briefings these sort of erratic twitter explosions, which has always had, but I feel like ie.
Isn't really you know he used to be
in a defensive way, still somehow effective in terms of appealing to his base when you get on
Erin, Ranten Raven say crazy things, but because we ve
before because people are actually not a happy with how he's handled this this crisis, it's almost like you
Doesn't care- or I mean, does he still think that that his belief, true believers, irritably
Greece has no matter what and go with his theory, because in this
she is it. It's is a huge misjudgment on his part, but I do feel a little, but if you look and take his
it's in the last month and a half years
he's all over the map, do you remember how many months ago, this point two months ago, roughly maybe three
he said. Look I want everyone that, when this is over, this is good news coming. This is all terrible but
we're gonna move on, and everyone should forget this happen to get up
virus. We're gonna have a combat for those who lost
people they they can never forget, but but for everyone else, we're going to forget about this virus like it never happened. That is, he bully. He believed then, till now that that is the best way to hand
is that that that is why he wants to hold rallies and indoor arenas. That's why
he doesn't want to look at at at at testing. He thinks the best way is to is to fully restore
forget about it happening. I mean there's a lot to be said for that.
There's a reason why one thousand nine hundred and eighteen was the forgotten pandemic, really because people did not want to remember the the trauma that they endured and the things that they had to do, and it was a terrible
arrogance and mankind has an evolutionary capacity to forget traumas. Why we can still go up
every morning, but he's not doing that. For me, it is not saying that for any deep
understanding of human psychology. Just really wants to get past this, because he doesn't like doing the job right now.
Ok, so the other possibility other way of looking at this is that he is attempting that the again, if you want to look at it as a as
as a message is actually attempting to convey, rather
unlike
do. You know what I'm going to tell you the truth like I wish we didn't have all this testing cuz. It makes it look bad, and it's really not that bad, and you know all of that right that he is establishing a prayer.
They say they want to testing
gave them testing? There was
out of testing the numbers look bad now in September, and you know what all that testing.
Made people feel bad and made them worried. So we did all that testing and you know what it turned out that that you know the virus ended justice, tout testing was or Europe largely ended. Justice testing was ramping up,
and I told you not to overreact- and nobody listened to me is that possible, or is that to them? I am I
Giving the my sort of like trying to look further, the pony in the states to long term
I think, there's a pony in there, but there is something very frustrating about the way in which the press particularly focuses on the din.
Greece new cases as though it save a measure?
really valuable statistic. Once it's just not hospitalizations mattered rates matter, new cases isn't necessarily.
At the of the NBA median testing regime provides us with the means to contract tracing
Somebody knows opening those all this new, but then the reporters. I got this stunning literally reading it we right now from
Peter, say, talking and reading a twentieth unhindered. Singer further senior fellow New America used to be rapporteur, it's just stunning and depressing how badly we are losing this fight, but not we're just now,
It's a political narrative using personal political narrative and so is the press. So I get that that's very frustrating. There's there's another very important statistic:.
To which is the meeting age of those who are now getting infected it in Florida, for example its much much lower than
was earlier and that had been it was in New York? It's, I forget the exact number, but I can look it up, but but but the but the point is
that the median ages and arrange where I'm so few people have actual serious complications from the virus, and the danger of this is that, if
narrative, that the press is drumming up about. Oh how terrible how awful- which they are using in large part, to point a place blame on the trouble administration.
That undermines again. We ve been the public health message
that, we still need to be doing certain things to keep this at bay. Rightly
mask wearing and as soon as these things become weapons in a culture war
then there's gonna be a whole lot of people on both sides who do stupid things. This result to signal, rather than to just follow what should be a common sense guidance adjust. Where
mask ok, where mask when you're in a public coat enclosed public space and the
Fusion around that which has existed throughout this pandemic because of the mixed messaging, if we're gonna ever actually get back
some sort of normalcy in the fall perfectly with kids going back to school and people getting back into their into their workplaces.
Really the political position of those public health messages is built really gonna be dangerous, as is the polarization of these numbers wrote
so around New York City. I was away for a couple weeks and I've just got back in
interesting as around Europe's around Manhattan and all round,
and everybody is wearing masks
I mean, I would say, on the street I haven't been. To the I mean, I saw some people at a, but you know standing outside a bar drinking and they didn't have masks on which is understandable.
They were ingesting something. So you can't drink through a masks. South AIDS work wearing I, but I'm in everywhere
people wearing masks, see that's not everything like that
you mean like out on in on the street like on the sidewalk. Obviously, that's not in DC saint dramatic drop, Post post protest, a lot fewer people wearing mass on the street, but now required to wear them endorse most ok, but here's what I
thinking you see in New York, it's a little like the barn door closed where, through the worst of it in out, were now in it in a low double digit number of deaths per day in New York City in particular, but everybody was traumatized and everybody got to
message and everyone is now wearing them at will see what happens. It was ninety degrees. Yesterday it was very difficult to walk round the mask on what I did and most everybody was and that's just the way it was now. The question is: if there is a spike,
It hospitalizations in Texas, which Governor Abbot said there was yesterday, will people in the cities
access, I don't mean- and you know em in the out in the you know,
where the dry ways or three miles long and everyone's home is twenty five thousand acres. But you know,
in the cities in Dallas Usin San Antonio places, like that, our people
going to wear masks or it is
the anti mask regime? There are two different things here right. Every everything got much together the idea that we were being oppressed by the mask, which we can all understand, because the notion that govern will tell you have to wear
something face covering seems very fascistic right. I mean, if just does not seem like an american thing. That happened
that's one thing and then the shutdowns right, the was which were a vastly more disruptive and terrible and awful. But somehow, if you said that the shutter,
were bad. You also shouldn't where a mask, whereas in fact it strikes me that the opposite should be the case. You don't want, you don't want shutdowns. You want America to be as as much a place as it could be as possible. You have
Do something participate in some way in stopping the spread of the virus, but it was all Guam together and so now,
we're gonna see in some of these places, where the where the feeling about the virus became ideological, became a kind of don't tread on me thing whether people are going to as they now take individual responsibility.
And you know not from government but actually from their own inside their own souls and say even if I'm not worried about getting sick. I understand that
you know, I'm not some kind of a magical figure who can avoid spreading a virus that I may not, even though I have so I'm not aware this mask and let's face it, people are mostly in places like
that they're, mostly in car there in a lot of cars there in some, but if they go into a mall, they should wear a mask if they going to supermarket. They should wear a mask, and I don't know that that
happen I mean, but that's not really. The problem is it. I mean the problem
As we understand it is prolonged exposure. Enclosed closed indoor spaces with people who have an infection so like fifty,
minutes memorized somebody in a closed indoor space, which the cases that are really spiking correlate really closely with the pursuit of climate control, furnaces air conditioner whenever the temperature is outside of its not between sixteen eighty degrees, its you're gonna, get infection rates and crew.
So it's not the models that are the problem is not the restaurant willing, Walser be also Moser. Our climate controlled gather your net, the easier dear demand,
exposure? You have next to someone in those spaces is limited by virtue of the amount of time you're spending these bases, as well as here in the few indoor spaces, with people like apartment buildings, like your home
the generational family home run. These are the places that people get this bone and against Coralie frilly closely with the pursuit of climate control. So if it's not that, I don't think it's necessarily the institutions, outdoor indoor, that are gonna, be the source of the problem. It where you spend the most time with a lot of people in a closed room right. But I mean that's what I just said
go into Superman? Okay. So if your idea is added up, if you get, if you get some kind of heiress Eliza spit on you from somebody with covered
That's thought of you game by the way.
As he gets up on you, I don't know whether that means you get it or not. Maybe if Europe somewhat immune compromise, you know you know you are a little it'll have that effect. That could happen in a supermarket, as you were walking by somebody who coughed or sneezed or were apparently, which is my other favorite
the speaking or singing loudly you're this
apparently singing loudly is a super spreader now church pliers for that reason, yeah exactly, which is that you're there for a long time and that we know that the virus load that you take on correlates with the worse better,
infection that you get so anyway Abe you innocent ass links about how the
the death deathrays in the mere, not focusing on the death rate, plummeting.
Should the media be focusing on the death rate plummeting. I mean just let's game this out like what what what? What is the story with the death rate? Plummeting, it's almost like. If you say it's there, we see it because we can see data that are released by the media, but if you focus
and how it appears that the virus is going away. Are you being responsible are irresponsible a minute? I think you should give both
do time? You know I'm going to do. Don't don't ignore that the infection rate is is, is rising in places, but yeah there is there. It's very important news that the death rate is plummeting and it, and it is encouraging, especially at a time when we are trying to open up in various phases of across the country. Yes, certainly I mean- and it's also interesting, that the death rate is plummeting and and there's a lot of questions that need to be asked that that aren't being asked, because we're not even focusing on it. Why is the death ray plumbing? Is it? Is it because there's a weak or strong
is it because the care has gotten better? Is it because the most most vulnerable have already been infected, or is it sir,
some combination of all of these phenomena,
and then these and these would lead to tis to better approaches to the virus going forward. So yesterday they should be focusing on a much more.
What an and more most importantly, because it is that, although nobody likes to speak this way after three months of
account just starting to open up. You know it
it's quite possible. We never will get a highly functioning vaccine for this project.
You mean a virus. I mean it's not if you get your
every year,
necessarily always were a great. I mean they did they do it some years
than other. So the possibility, like the sort of existential central possibility. This is something humanity will now have to live with, makes that AIDS point even more important measures
understand how this functions. Is it like a regular viruses. Indifferent in some ways who is most at risk is the risk change based on how the virus changes but
These are all interesting and important public health issues, and I think I be
curious to see going forward, I've noticed in D C. The shift has happened that as
and fewer people wearing masks than public if their outside, but more and more private businesses and government buildings, and we just had an announcement yesterday from Washington's metro that you ma
swear mask if you come in and they are turning people away if they walk walking without a mask, and these are often places they're, not
handing out mass of people who don't have them their lorries thing you can't come in, so that I'm seeing much more kind of control it that a gatekeeper control rather than assume
people are actually going obey the rules at a mark has its pretty clear: you know if you let him get after these Prodi,
tat we ve had and continue to haven't you see there is no,
Swearingin along some are wearing mass, but many are not soldier. There is a world of desert now guided
there's just there's also the fact that this is all the still the first wave and all these places are seeing new spike, never had a first spike, more obvious.
Much about her western Europe has done so amazing Germany, which never had a really significant outbreak. Everybody we spoke is very much in Germany in April remains
what are they bought? Are they doing? How are they going to so much better than that? Germany's are re or not rate. Is Turkey currently today, two point: eight eight we did not get married in their case rate, is rising, nobody's really talking about at sea. It comes in Germany's hospitals are pretty good, just like an american hospitals. Outcomes are pretty good, but the places they didn't
outbreak to begin with, are getting it now. What one of the startling things is that when you hear about South Korea, for example, getting worse
that their seeing a second wave of use,
the stories in the last couple of days. Yet, ok, so
On Saturday in the nation of South Korea, the fear of the second wave sixty seven new cases, of which thirty one came from overseas. While the rest will
In fact, it was the largest daily increasing seventy nine cases on May twenty eight. This is a country of fifty million people so that we are looking at a scale of worry in a place like South Korea, where they're they're, starting to lock people down again fork for case numbers that are miniscule. So the question is everyone's sang boy,
South Korea their great. They know how to do this. They were contact racing gather that without a doubt, but I mean what, if they're just they ve all gone insane,
but they had the Sars virus experience. I mean they there. I had more recent memory of this kind of thing and how to nip it in the bud than Americans do or likely well going forward right.
I know, but I'm just saying like: are we really going to be governed? Are we going to determine that
I can waivers hit America when there are a hundred new cases in
September in New York City. I mean I just
understand the scale that we are. We are looking at here, it's almost as though, what groups are just it. That's the flip side of Donald Trump mania. Is that
he's he's responding to conditions that are real witches. This purse
two of narrative in the part of the press, which wants us to be losing this fight, which wants us to be a frivolous nation in the face of the existential
threat and they are hyping up these case rate numbers, some of which are now
particularly indicative us of how the the virus spreading in the United States
It's a pursuit of a political narrative in the present trying to pursue his own political narrative as malady, rightly as possible, and as an encounter inappropriate as counterproductive, but nevertheless it's a pursuit
a narrative you once the press is pursuing a narrative you once he understands the game, that's being played in trying to play to look, I
really wanted the virus to be overcome,
I wanted Alex parents and to be right. I wanted to think that this was health risk,
in madness run a mark, and you know safety is a man all of that right. I really did. I just don't think you can look at a hundred and twenty thousand dead in in four months and say that that's what what happened! This is the worst.
Disease outbreak. We ve seen in this country and half a century and if it isn't nipped in the bud and it just kind of
chugs along. It doesn't look like it's gonna chug along right. The death rate is plummeting, but if it you know
drugs long even at this lower level. You know, with three hundred a day,
three hundred a day. Is you know nine thousand a month and nine thousand a month? Is it out by the time you get six months? That's another! Fifty thousand people, you know it's, so I am totally cognitive. Dissonance, like you know, a socially distanced and cognitive dissonance. There I genuinely dont know
What to think all I know is that the kind of gotta do something got aware, a mask or do something, because it's not nothing and people the people
want to say that it's all overblown want,
So the believed that it's nothing to get you
Something could can be overblown. That does mean that it's it's not blown, he felt it something, and yet everybody people want to act as though it's nothing
At the same time, the people who think it's everything I have absolutely no no
inhibitions about about what this permanent lockdown stated
do still desire. There are still people like that out there, including in New York, who are fearful of the outdoor restaurants, open, never end and end phase two and the rest of it they are they are. They have absolutely no sense of the consequences of continuing to treat this like it is everything? Ok. So let me take a step back and talk to about our new sponsor MAC. Welded. Let me tell you about MAC welded. Ok, the people who founded Maxwell them did so because they wanted more out of our basic.
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I've come promo code commentary thanks to MAC Weldon for sponsoring the commentary magazine, Podcast, okay, so in the great unravelling the said, the statue, the statue destruction, continues apace,
and that we now have a governor Andrew Cuomo, the sainted Andrew Cuomo, the Saint of Albany, the bar to forest hills, the jerk of of of the hat, a department of Housing and urban development during the Clinton administration, who, in fact
The firing of inspectors general in the effort to get the inspectors general arrested, who did not to conform with his desire to have his pet programmes not looked at just
give you a little back remain Andrew Cuomo anyway. He is now said that he endorses the removal of statues, like the statue of Thomas Jefferson, city, council, Speaker, New York, sacred City, council, Speaker, Corey Johnson has now said that the Thomas Jefferson stature should go to eleven talk, a little backward Johnson, and then we can go on Korea. Johnson is a guy that famous in the year two thousand in high school because he came out of the closet. Then it goes off to George Washington University, where he spends a semester and drops out that it comes to New York and work,
in Energy BT activism until two thousand three two thousand for when he discovers that he is HIV positive in two thousand and nine, he wakes up one more.
Realises that the age of twenty seven, that he is a cocaine act and he quits cocaine by this
twenty years on a community board and then in two thousand and twelve, two thousand and thirteen.
He runs. I believe, as the first openly HIV positive candidate for office in the United States, wins a city council seed and then ends up as the presidency of the council.
They uniquely powerless and stupid job? The mayor
city has almost all the power
the city. The city council does almost nothing sitting. Charter was rewritten in the late
late eighties early nineties to empower the mayor with enormous control over things and mostly at some point, all the city Council of the Save in York did was rename streets. So you can bet that over the next year, as Corey Johnson Trust run from air to replace, build the palazzo, we're gonna, have many Malcolm X, treats we're gonna, have we're gonna have George Floyd streets. We will have.
Abrams Ex candy streets. We will have no credit airs gas at all of that, so basically
we now have the political establishment of of New York City joining in
and New York state joining in the notion that it is really good that statues be torn down, sell out
If there are grave unravelling. You bet your ass. There is a grave unwrap. Workable Cuomo is still against taking down the Columbus statue. Ah, well, that's my as in that correctly that he appeals to the sopranos rationale,
is that this is part of the italian heritage italian american heritage.
It's kind of a digression but its funds. I've been going through all these archival expo
days on network news about the history of riots in nineteen sixty seven nineteen sixty eight and what have you and
Italian american culture really inventive cancel culture. If, because
rare, an annual early nineteenth seventies. There was a real preventative effort to police, the godfather, oh yeah,
to prevent grandfather using all these in our italian american slang stereotypes. The word mafia does not appear in the guy
father read your conference about neural fulfilment. Yet, nor is the word Cosa Nostra NED.
But why that happened. He having this is not just cancel culture, because it's nice to say it's cancel culture. We was Teamsters, it was. You know, Tony Pro, from the Irishman, letting pyramid pictures, no, that they were gonna have labour problems. If they, you know if they went to deep into using terminology that sounded italian armies, others like a shooting and unlocked street, and none during one of these parades and
in America. Bread and in everyone who spoke to the press was very quiet about it, but there were a couple of people who probably were very legitimate, who were I rate and furious at the press for creating the condition
that resulted in the street violence. That was their fault because they had created print, presented all the stereotypes and create the idea that accounting Americans were all criminals and and
violence and done to this is that EU yelling at reporters going after report is like a mega rallies in some, but but from the perspective of somebody, who's deepen identity, politics and proceeds at ninety politics. In the way we see at any politics practice in the streets today I thought was a very fascinating
look at a kind of a kind of their mentality that we see today is so new, and it's not what you know. But there is a tradition of italian Americans who
very legitimately and genuinely can't stand the idea that italian american culture is essential
it'd romantically and so closely with organised crime and I've, and then they haven't, they have a good point. I mean, but by the way, is an interesting point that no you're making, because, as I mentioned, a paramount pictures exceeded right to the demand that the term mafia
that's from Kosovo and not be used in the godfather, and you can look at that as serving a cultural saw bright as I as a as it as an effort to be more woke in some nineteen early nineteenth centuries way. But it was backed- and I mean the sincerity by threat. It was backed by by physical violence.
That and cancel culture now is being backed by threat. Some of it is, you know, doc saying so. That is, you know having your video put on and ruined on on
two or twitter and solve it, is the violence of the.
But it is in the rioters, and so you can have a success entirely. Successful cancel culture go nation wide. If there isn't some- and there was- this was true in the sixties- also, if there isn't some force to back it up, if there isn't some muscle that actually makes people genuinely afraid for their personal safety and not just afraid that they're gonna be humiliated like up like a college. Professor
well in this is where, in factored, the mafia. Comparison is also interesting, because the federal government was pretty actively trying to investigate it and do the mafia for decades right. So you had a sort of instant powerful institutional.
And all justice branch really try
Take them down. Take them part which is still doing there still a lot of veto efforts. It give it a go.
His crime compared to the deep muscle today of these mobs and the leaders when faced with them, who do very little or the police officers who turn up to do their job.
Then I told you better, not you better just stand there, because if you fire to your Gaza rubber bullets, her, if you, if you, if you do
anything that might be filmed and make your entire department look. Racist or terrible than this is gonna, be a bad thing. Neither thereby cop
there's a female carbon, I'm gonna, unlike him, which city who live
He took a beating and
drawing her weapon because she was so worried about what would not what might happen if she had to discharge your weapon. We saw cops last night in DC protecting the
Lafayette, where area outside the White House being absolutely paraded by a completely ridiculous
man with a man by whose
out of his mind high on something and he singled out the african american cop, inserted saying terrible things to this man who stood.
Ended his job and didn't respond, and it was just the same
that I think I think you're right it make a lot of Americans. Look at that and say where law and order has takes on a different meeting. When you see that now, when trumps as it, I dont think it has, it has the same ring is he intends, but
an idea that there is that the institutions that are supposed to protect people from these sorts of months are not really either of either the cops are being told to stand down or to take it Easy
in the local leaders. Her saying: oh, it's a block party.
There is a lot of cognitive dissonance right now. Americans want to see this end,
the violence and the looting in writing and or perhaps a what
Youtube working at this this. This is the direction we're headed for the rest of the summer. I'm sorry, I just have to dwell on Cuomo four thousand one hundred and forty one little more instant, because it's just an enraging Cuomo throughout the pandemic and through his daily press briefings, took to opening those briefings with quotes about fortitude
and facts, and he would put up pictures and quotes from Winston Churchill and the founders and the american founders.
These were his go to. This is who he wanted to be linked with in the public eye. During that now the new cycle has changed and he is Hon Board for tearing down the statues of those very people.
It is. It is just a sickening turn around that I had to bring up in our yes. Drink are grouped yet ok, sorry one drink.
You said, as we get, is we week survey the the spectrum of things going on in some us after Christine mention the statues, the
Seen in Seattle, all of that
you said, there's a part of you that thinks that trumpets gonna get reelected, because the country just cannot will not be able to buy them.
And we'll have no other electoral outlet to say enough of this except voting for him yeah I mean
It is only a part of me, but it is legit
Pardon me I mean, and despite him stepping on,
every day, and you know saying awful:
things every day? There is also the encroaching madness every day that I feel that I think it to most people drowned out his his bad Soundbites Anne and what it really means is because I am talking about
liberals who are freaked out who are out there and are just absolutely mortified about what is happening in terms of their gettings for speech and thought instruction at the workplace,
and seeing this kind of madness take over their friends and all the rest of it doesn't mean they're going to go out and vote for Trump, but it may mean that felt that they will that they will sit at home because they're not enthusiastic about voting for a party that the Democratic Party that that sympathises.
To any degree with what is going on. I fight. I do think that storage and merchants, and at the same time it is it's also explains- could explain the the bad Poland for trumpet the moment
because there are people out there who are so disgusted by what's happening in the public and but who, at the same time,
it is never a worse time to tell upholsterer that you are going to vote for Trump
What will you do it right so its June twenty third ride? The election is at an own of ember. Third, fourth, second matter, but some point between the first in the history of member is election day. I don't know
I can't remember which they so you know a lot can happen between now and then. The question is whether what is going on this summer,
will a bathe, and, of course you know, the only parallel analog that we really have to what's going on here is is one thousand nine hundred and sixty eight with the you know to put the
very serious absence of two things right: assassinations, which are that you we were so that you could call the the citizen DES assassinations,
Santa like standing in for the assassinations of Kennedy in king.
But we don't have that and we don't have the war in Vietnam, motivating people and playing a role both in an all kinds.
Directions, but we have urban Unwrast. We have a resurgent revolutionary left. We have all kinds of things like that. If this doesn't abate Dan,
I don't even know that it matters what Trump says or what Biden says, or you know that that we're talkin about giant things here and it didn't matter that Nixon said law and order, or that Humphrey you know, was a kind of ineffectual person dealing with her
revolt it from his left at the democratic convention where, if you know there was a five hundred thousand person riot in Grant park in Chicago- and you know all these weird things happening all over the country-
none of what they said matter. It was all who they word what they were representing at the time I mean. Maybe it mattered that Nixon's Eddie of a secret planted to end the war
Vietnam, it could have it couldn't have. Who knows there was a third party candidate that you know took a lot of the boat and took some stay at me, know whatever. Who knows, but what was clear if sixteen as a parallel is it never stopped the unrest, the sense of unrest never stopped and the fact,
are also going to be in some weird emotional state in the in the end of September October November. Worrying
we're seeing were experiencing or were doing what we can to prevent the second wave of the virus,
maybe it doesn't matter what anybody? What what they're doing? Maybe it doesn't matter what they're saying when one one thing that is interesting is how
in the sixties. You couldn't have definable leaders on either side of what was going on right. You could point to specific individuals and say here's this radical saying that our here's, this person on the rising that so black
Lives matter is a phrase that the meaning of the phrase is something a lot of Americans of change, your mind about an embrace and- and I have come to terms with and say, yeah we understand what this messages
the only leadership on that on that radical side is the black lives Matter organization, and I think, if you're a vote,
and there's some interesting data about how many of you feel proud of his loading.
Don't coalition trump really got a lot of those people who just were disgusted with the contents and didn't want to see Hilary in the White House, and that doesn't mean I loved him. That means they hated her, which is a different kind of vote.
When you could well see you know how is a voter and how is Joe Biden going
to deal with a leaderless. Radicalized left her
the only organisation is is avowedly marxist and radical. He can't disavow black lives matter. He can't do that right, but for the people who are concerned,
the violence and unrest, its associated love. These protests continues he's got.
I have to say something right and I dont think o looting is bad, is gonna cover it and ended. Then there's no leader that he can point to ordinary sit down and talk to or any of that stuff that you have had in previous times of unrest. Why would he have to say anything whose me
He say. Anything Minoan, isn't he's not wasting the Poles well
the only way in which you back here allow me to make a point. Zero was pull back here. I wish that there was a big debate in this country about who is a force for stability here, but we need not happening. We're not seeing and out from his down ten points in the polls, and Joe Biden doesn't have
do anything because he's been in the base with the whole towns only do better. So I mean I wish that there was this force for stability them
Good I'll rally round like an until you do that for another few months, combined. Do that for three more Montoya display proposal taken after the conventions are usually doing autumn, but that's entropy if this
continue forever? Maybe the dynamic changes, but, as of this moment, the snapshot in time there is no pressure on Joe Biden either disavow his life
flank and there is no indication that Donald Trump is benefiting from any of that's ok. So there is one thing that he'll do, which is ill pick a vice presidential candidate and who picks whom he picks em,
or what reason and for what reason it is a deuce that that person was chosen will be the big thing that he says I thank and when, where that person stands on the great unravelling, well, well, well, well, that's what I mean
Yeah, that's exactly my point. So you have. There is a world of difference between picking you know. Oddly enough I mean I can now say the world of difference.
Twin picking, can avail demagogues and pick it up.
Pitkin, I don't know. Actually, I don't know what, where there's a world of difference or not a world of difference by, I wrote up, missed you this piece for the New York Post over the over the weekend, which I laid out why he should pick Michelle Obama, which I think is a fairly obvious choice if he could, if she do it, and all of that mean she's perfectly better choose one of the two or three most
most people in America, she's universally beloved among Democrats and she's, very vague on where she stands on a lot of this and a lot of right, wingers, don't like her because of for good reason, cuz. I think she said I have. She was only proud of her country because they cuz there
then, was doing well, I'm getting the nomination and all that, but she does not appear to be
fire breather about the weather and that sort of thing, and so it's mischief fiscal. But I assume that he would really like that if you could pick somebody who is both acceptable but bland,
on these issues. That would probably be the sign that a he was in its when it may be that the party itself understood what it should do to get itself to November and the and the woman
Victor, so the only thing about the Michelle Obama idea and, of course, if it would benefit him greatly, but is that the lab sightedness of that ticket is so glaring that I don't think she would ever do it. She is
much more talented than he is. She is so much more beloved me as she is so much more capable than he is. She is such a bigger star. Then he is that to that that to be his vice president, I think would be a sort of,
at an absurd gesture on her part
in the smart money now is on tomorrow. Harris that's where the betting markets are and who knows, but that would provide, but her perceived wilderness for life.
A better word does give him some latitude to get to the right of these protestors,
scared, the hell out of the right wing, but it would allow
Our him give him the space to distance himself from the radicals in the streets
I'm going to disagree with you on that, because she there is
This whole
Oh narrative, about her being a tough prosecutor in treating you know people.
Of color terribly when she was attorney general.
California, that would, I assume, required her when she was running for president. Would
acquire her. You know, as as a vice presidential candidate, to make herself acceptable to the people who said that she was too you know harsh and terrible, and so on and criminal justice issues, and that would
the help it because it would actually pushes tickets to the left. Now I dont know that they agree with me that they don't be. They shouldn't be pushed to the left
but he's got a big assist from the media already on this right? The people who, during the primaries were saying that about Harrah's have already flipped inside you, while she's in her. She has a pretty good record as a process.
Two. She understands these issues. I mean I've been there, but a couple of it. There is a New York Times
I say, as you did this for already like that. That flip will continue to happen, though forget all of the critic
they always disingenuous. It was always dishonest. The prosecutor prosecutes the law
problem, they have these activists
a law when they want to prosecute,
whose job it is to pursue the law to actually flouted and and go their own, have ideology. Trump law will yield to speaking of soda. Yesterday, Tromp announced that he is authorized law enforcement to prevent people from from tearing down stay,
choose, that's big of him. It was a most. It was the weird having their already authorized to do that. Not that easy.
Our second of all. He has no control over law enforcement. He has yes, he has a couple of police squads. He's got the FBI, he's got the eighty f and government
It didn't seem. Police, Stacy police are the ones who prevented the Andrew Jackson Statue from coming down near the White House yesterday. That was the deceased. Please
by the way I should say- and I think I need what go ahead. Nice has expectations that he cannot meet
because he doesn't have our he's just saying I already under way to stop at oh yeah.
Could you say I'm gonna do that and you dont do it. You look like that. You don't have control over things and you dont present yourself as a pillar of stability. Well, you know it's not like you to go out and give up really eloquent speech on why we need these
Actually that's part of the problem. All we can do is say I author, I will. I am making an empty gesture now.
Here, you go America. Here's my Andrea gesture assumptions like is uniquely ill equipped to navigate this moment and present himself as a pole in this debate.
Which I think would be very valuable if he was anybody else, but you don't pull you don't mean it. You don't mean ape public opinion poll not be away like a yes, you mean like up North STAR S, fixed a fixed point or something right. I should say that, as we started this conversation that undue Como still supports the Eggs
since of Christopher Columbus statues that at Columbus Circle in New York City is very heavily protected. Right now like there are, there are three or four: doesn't cop standing around their fence. Get there are fences all around Columbus Circle and eight, no one get near that statue,
and so it was interesting here. Is that dumb
This is a circumstance in which yeah police were in a police are backing to listen and all of this
the IP is not going to, let that statue come down the build the plaza or no build the plaza they're not gonna, stand around and let that statue come down
Yeah, I guess if the mayor said, let the statue come that you now let that let them tear down the statue. I don't know how they can then forced the cops to stand by and not enforce up in a law against public vandalism and the destruction of public property. But I guess, and then Columbus Circle is not Columbus circle. Columbus avenue was not Columbus, haven't you
and well. That's all. That's all that that that strikes me now is almost inevitable. Yes, you know what I did that I care a lot less about them about the american politics moment. Then people defacing
You know. U S, grant statue and and talking trash about. You know Lincoln and Jefferson all them
ok, so crushing morality achieved see tomorrow, re Christine, though jump onwards,
Transcript generated on 2020-08-03.